


Servant to the Crown

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Abuse, Cinderella AU, Hurt/Comfort, Iedolas/Ravus for the noncon parts, M/M, No underage but Ravus is still hurt as a kid, Ravus suffers but things get better, Whipping, beatings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:47:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22588900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Following the murder of Queen Sylva Fleuret, Lunafreya is taken by Emperor Iedolas as his daughter while Ravus is relegated to a servant and whipping boy, bearing the brunt of Iedolas’ fury with a Tenebrae that refuses to bow. With Luna on the rise as a beloved princess and a treaty to be ratified between Lucis and Niflheim, Ravus finally sees a chance to escape... Even if just for a night.
Relationships: Iedolas Aldercapt/Ravus Nox Fleuret, Ravus Nox Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	Servant to the Crown

**Author's Note:**

> The tags and ratings exist for a reason! Don’t read it if this isn’t your cup of tea.

Her imperial highness Lunafreya Aldercapt, first of her name and crown princess of Niflheim, was nine the first time her manservant donned the blood-red uniform of the official guard. 

“Oh, it suits you,” she said, as Servus stepped out from behind the door to his room. His long, white-blond hair was braided over his shoulder, and his back was perfectly straight, accenting the line of buttons on his jacket. He wriggled his toes in his new boots and tilted his head, which made his silver skull mask cast spots of light on the ceiling. 

“It’s comfortable enough,” he said, in the low, brusque tone he always used when he wanted to hide how pleased he was. 

“It’s a shame you’ll grow out of it,” Luna said. At thirteen, Servus was well into the waifish gangle of puberty—Luna had spent most of her own pocket money bribing the tailors to keep up with his skinny ankles and bony elbows, though she was loath to tell Servus of the expense. He was stubborn to a fault; Sometimes, she suspected he would rather walk around in rags than admit he couldn’t manage on his own.

True to form, Servus moved his finger in a circle—his way of letting Luna know he was rolling his eyes behind the mask. “Well, someone has to worry about you,” Luna said, and he sighed. “It’s true. But you do look very nice. Does this mean you’ll be training with the guards more, now?”

“Sometimes.” Servus adjusted his collar in the mirror, tilting his head this way and that to get a better look. “It won’t interfere with my duties to you, though.”

“You’re allowed to have a life, you know,” Luna said, but her manservant said nothing, just angled his head to examine the polish of his boots. “Do you... do you wear the mask when you’re training?”

“There’s a mesh one they have me use.” 

“I wish you didn’t have to,” Luna said. “I’m sure whatever happened to your face isn’t as bad as all that.” It was an old argument, and one Luna had no chance of winning. She’d been trying to get Servus to take his mask off since she was old enough to talk, but Servus had politely refused each time. He’d told her it was a kindness from the emperor—something he’d given Servus to cover the scar during the fight that killed Luna’s mother—but she was starting to wonder if there was a man at all under there, or if Servus’ head were just smoke, a clever illusion of magitech.

“I’ll be serving your father tonight after dinner,” Servus said at last. “Do try not to sneak out to talk to the chocobos this time.”

“That was one time, and I was seven,” Luna said. 

“Oh, yes,” Servus drawled. “Ancient history.” Luna groaned and tossed a pillow at his head, and was rewarded with his hollow, echoing laugh.

Someone knocked on the door, and Luna watched as Servus straightened his shoulders, going cold and still and distressingly formal. He bowed to Luna before he left, called her _highness,_ and Luna twisted her fingers in her dress and wished, not for the first time, that he could have dared to call her _Luna_ when they weren’t alone.

———

“On your knees.”

Ravus cursed under his breath as he dropped to the stone floor of Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt’s observatory, blocking out the light of the stars that blanketed the tiles. Constellations slid over Ravus’ back, stars nestling in his hair, and the great projector above him slowly spun to mimic the rotation of the earth, flickering with light. 

The emperor stood over him, dressed in a white robe over a red and black suit, and Ravus slowly peeled off the jacket of his new uniform. The air was chilly in the observatory, and his skin prickled as he unbuttoned his pristine white undershirt.

“Do you know what your people have done this time?” the emperor asked. His voice was a low rumble, dangerous as the thunder of a storm off the sea. Ravus shook his head, and when he shucked off his shirt, an MT soldier materialized from the darkness to grip his wrists, bending him forward until he was practically genuflecting before the emperor. He braced himself for the cold bite of the shackles before they came, and eyed the weighted chain between them with distaste. Of course the emperor didn’t want him to rise. Not for this.

“Three bases in Tenebrae were attacked this afternoon,” the emperor said. Ravus smiled behind his mask. “Over two hundred and sixty-seven troops disappeared into the woods. Two hundred and sixty-seven. Eight years, and your people still refuse to be brought to heel.”

“You killed their queen,” Ravus said, in a soft voice. He cleared his throat, struggling to lift himself up with the weighted shackles. If he was going to be beaten anyway... “Tenebrae isn’t so weak that we’ll lick the boot that rests on our necks.”

The emperor snapped his fingers, and there was a crack of lightning, a numb, half second of silence, and the searing burn of pain over his skin. Ravus kept his hands lifted, muscles straining against the weight of his bonds, and turned to look at the emperor.

“I can remove you from Lunafreya’s service,” the emperor said, in a soft, emotionless tone. Behind Ravus, the whip cracked again, and he hunched forward, collapsing on the stone with a clatter of iron. “I can take your punishment out on your people. Have the MTs pick a family, perhaps, and drag out their firstborn to be flayed in the square in your place.”

Ravus bit his lip until copper bloomed on his tongue, and forced himself not to cry out at the next lash of the whip. He grunted instead, and his mask scraped against the stone. The constellation of Bahamut slid over the emperor’s boots as Iedolas stopped just before him, and Ravus felt the catch of his mask being pried loose. It fell free, and sweat spotted the ground as Ravus was struck again. He did cry out this time, and the emperor clicked his tongue as though admonishing a disobedient pet.

“Prove your loyalty to me, and I’ll let you return to her,” he said. 

Fire on his back. Fire in the trees of Tenebrae. Smoke in his lungs as Ravus fled the manor, too young to know where to go, barely old enough to hold his baby sister in his arms as he stumbled across the grass.

Ash in his hair as the emperor held Lunafreya and smiled into her bewildered face.

Ash on his tongue as he begged the emperor to let him stay.

Fire in his lungs as the whip sliced the skin of his shoulders.

Ravus brought his lips to the toe of the emperor’s boot, and choked on fire as the stars of the observatory drifted over him, drowning in the dark rivers of his Tenebraean blood.

———

Servus came back sometime after midnight. Luna had stayed up with a book on the cosmogony, anxiously watching the minutes tick by, and had drifted off with her face on the page dedicated to Shiva and Ifrit. Servus tried to slip in quietly, but she heard the muffled curse as he opened the connecting door to his room, and the floor vibrated faintly as he dropped to his pallet. Luna sat up, blinking in the dark, and heard a soft, shallow gasp come from the half open door.

“Servus?” she whispered. There was a low moan, thick and pained, and Servus’ hand scrabbled at the door. “Servus, what’s wrong?”

“Go back to bed, your highness.” Luna frowned at the low tone of his voice, and slipped out of bed. She grabbed the door before Servus could close it, and got a glimpse of a pair of mismatched eyes before Servus turned his back on her, covering his face with both hands. With his back to her, Luna could see the dark stain of blood on his new white shirt, and she dropped to her knees at his side.

“Oh, Servus,” she said. “Tell me Father didn’t.”

“I’m fine,” Servus moaned. He pressed his face to his pallet. “Let me. Let me put on my—“

“You don’t have to—“ Luna reached for his hands, and Servus curled in on himself. She’d never seen him cry before. Not when he’d been beaten for breaking wineglasses at dinner—which Luna’s father had sworn would never happen again. He’d clearly broken his promise, but whatever Servus had done, surely it didn’t warrant _this._

“Please,” Servus sobbed. “My mask. I can’t, you can’t see—“

“Alright,” Luna said. “It’s alright.” She found the mask, tipped up in the corner of the room, and slowly slid it under Servus’ hands. He kept his head turned as he fumbled to latch it, and Luna gently took over, buckling it over his white-blond hair. 

“Let me see,” she said, in a low voice.

“Gods, you sound like her,” he said.

Luna didn’t know what to say to that, but she touched Servus’ shirt, and he didn’t protest as she helped him wriggle it off. Whip weals lined his shoulders, several of them open and oozing blood, and Luna frowned as she caught the light lines of old scars underneath. Her fingers trembled as she touched an unmarked curve of Servus’ shoulder. 

“I don’t know how to... There must be bandages somewhere,” she said. “In the medical wing. I can ring for them—“

“No,” Servus said. “No, he can’t know.”

“He did this, then,” Luna said. “Father.”

“The emperor,” Servus said.

She lay a hand in Servus’ sweat-damp hair, and for the first time in her life, she _hated_ her father. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll do something, I promise. I’ll stop this. I’ll make it right.”

Servus’ laugh was wet and broken. “Now you sound like me.”

“You’re my friend,” Luna said. She stroked his hair, and Servus’ shoulders hunched further. “My best friend. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not again.”

Her fingers slid over the skin of his neck, and Servus flinched as light rose from Luna’s fingers, twisting in the air like dust motes in the library windows. Luna drew back, alarmed, but Servus twisted to face her. Light trailed over his shoulders, knitting his skin together, making new, faint scars, and Luna raised her own hands before her face, watching the light fade from her fingertips.

“I don’t... what did I...

“Magic,” Servus whispered. Luna stared at him, and he wrapped his fingers around Luna’s wrist. “That was magic, Lunafreya.”

“But we don’t _have_ magic in our line,” Luna said. “That’s why we use magitech. Father would have told me if I could—“

“He doesn’t know.” Servus’ voice was low, urgent. His skull mask glittered in the fading light, and Luna thought of the odd color of his eyes, violet and blue, on an unmarked face. “And he can’t know. You have to keep this a secret, Luna.”

“But why?”

“Promise me you won’t tell him,” Servus said. He clasped Luna’s hands in his. “It will only get worse if he knows. Promise me, Luna.”

“I promise,” Luna breathed. 

Servus bowed his head for a moment, then wrapped his arms around Luna, pulling her into a tight embrace. She could feel the tremor in his arms, hear the uneven, shaky hiss of his breath in the mask, and knew that he was crying again. She hugged him back, helpless and confused, and Servus squeezed her shoulders.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

Luna felt the ridges of his new scars, and stared into the corner of his small, cramped room, watching the last mote of light wink out like a star dying in the distant dark.


End file.
